The TART connect is a new transportation service of Tahoe Area Regional Transit. The free TART buses run regular routes about once an hour between Tahoma (Sugar Pine Point State Park) and Incline Village. TART connect is accessible via an app, will take you in a van from your door to another door within one of the three zones. For free! It’s a great new service that will hopefully reduce both parking and congestion in the downtown areas such as Tahoe City and Kings Beach.
After seeing a bunch of the sleek TART connect vans around town, and getting stuck in traffic twice in one day going to Tahoe City, I decided to give it a whirl. I went from my home in Sunnyside to the Post Office in Tahoe City. First step is to download the app, which took about a minute, and then setting up a ride is pretty much as quick and easy as those ride share companies. Except for the payment part, which doesn’t happen, because there is no money involved.
I connected and it said the van would be there in 3 minutes, and by the time I could get organized and out the door he was here. Probably quicker then I could get into the garage and get my car going. Turns out the driver was Bobby Carabetta who went to school with my daughters and it was fun catching up. But there wasn’t much time, in five minutes I’d been dropped off and was opening up my mail box. And I didn’t have to figure out where the heck to park.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I’ve never ridden the TART bus. It’s free and runs regularly with a stop just 100 yards from my house, but it just didn’t happen. This new app based ride was enticing enough to get me out of my car, and I plan to use it on a regular basis now. I’m thinking if a good number of us catch a TART connect instead of drive, our roads will less congested and parking will be less of a problem.
There are two caveats with TART connect. It’s only scheduled to go until Labor Day. And it only operates within a zone. In other words, you can get picked up in a zone and get a ride to anywhere else within that zone or to a TART bus stop to transfer to a bus going into the next zone. The service operates from 8 am to midnight.
Zone 1 is from Sugar Pine Point State Park to Dollar Hill.
Zone 2 is Tahoe Vista and Kings Beach
Zone 3 is Incline Village and Crystal Bay.
For information or to download the app go to tahoetruckeetransit.com